Dave Kneale / Volvo Ocean Race
Bekking reported that they had already met the local fishermen and done their bit for international relations – unlike Vasco da Gama
Sunday 30 November, 2008 10:00 GMT
THE TEN ZULU REPORT, LEG 2, DAY 16
By Mark Chisnell
Torben Grael and the Ericsson 4 crew took a firm grip on the 2007-08 Volvo Ocean Race last night with their second leg win. It follows a first place at the scoring gate and gives them maximum points for this leg – a stunning performance, the more so because it was completed (again) in a wide range of conditions. They closed it out by sailing on the beach all the way to the line – obviously, they’ve been reading the travel guides.
At 10:00 ZULU, with the Ericsson 4 crew enjoying a cold beer, a hot curry or a dry bed (or maybe all three), Bouwe Bekking and Telefonica Blue were leading the rest of the fleet home, sailing on port tack along the coast in a solid sea breeze – a westerly True Wind Direction (TWD in the Data Centre).
Behind her, Ericsson 3 went into StealthPlay at 04:00 ZULU, last seen headed for the tip of India in a light northerly wind. Green Dragon, PUMA and Delta Lloyd were still locked together, also headed for the coast, with PUMA having the edge now they are going upwind in the same variable (that’s the technical term) northerly. Meanwhile, Telefonica Black looked to be toying with the offshore option – but with just Team Russia behind them - trapped in a deep crevasse, after someone cut the rope - why not?
So, let’s rewind a little to see how Ericsson 4’s victory played out. They called their StealthPlay at 10:00 ZULU, less than 80 miles from the finish – which was probably about three hours late. By 07:00 yesterday, their wind was already down to six or seven knots and looking pretty flaky. If they had called the StealthPlay then, Telefonica Blue wouldn’t have seen the 33 mile gain they had made at the 10:00 ZULU report, indicating that Ericsson 4 had run out of wind.
But, unfortunately for Bouwe Bekking, the knowledge of Ericsson 4’s plight wasn’t any help anyway. The area of light breeze was moving south to meet them, and they sailed into it just after the 13:00 ZULU report. No big yellow taxis, but plenty of newly paved parking lot. On the upside, Bekking had decided to follow Ericsson 4 into Stealth Mode, starting at 13:00 – which ensured that he was no help to the boats behind in indicating the edge of the windless hole.
Ericsson 4 headed for the beach
By then, Torben Grael and navigator, Jules Salter, had headed for the beach, looking for either the last of the sea breeze or the night-time land breeze, the katabatic or drainage wind. The team’s meteorologist, Chris Bedford, had said before the start, “‘the average wind speed off the coast is less than four knots, but a nice sea breeze develops during the day. Although it's not a strong wind, it's fairly regular.”
But by the time Grael and Salter got inshore, at about midday ZULU, there was still only four or five knots of True Wind Speed (TWS). By then it was five o’clock in the afternoon local time, and if you haven’t got a sea breeze at that time of day, you aren’t going to get one. An hour or so later they found something, sailing through a transition zone into a north-easterly just three or four miles off the coast. Salter confirmed he was looking for the land breeze in this email last night, but I guess this could also have been a waft of the north-easterly gradient wind that was forecast.
It ghosted them towards the finish. And at 16:00 ZULU, with Bekking now off the radar, Ericsson 4 was just 36 miles from Cochin and reappeared. The rules state that any StealthPlay must end 50 miles from the finish, regardless of how much time it has to run. It told everyone that there was wind on the beach. And sure enough, when they reappeared at the 01:00 ZULU Position Report, Telefonica Blue was headed inshore.
Bouwe Bekking reported in an email this morning, that they were beating up the coast in a light northerly, and had already met the local fishermen and done their bit for international relations – unlike Vasco da Gama. But once the sun had risen and started to heat the land, the northerly was finally replaced by a solid sea breeze out of the west. So that by 10:00 ZULU they were doing over ten knots, pretty much straight at the finish line – this is the breeze that everybody is chasing inshore to find. And very welcome it will be for Telefonica Blue, now they are on port tack, the side for which they aren’t missing their daggerboard.
The blast of north-easterly gave brief hope to faint hearts
But I’m getting ahead of myself – by the 01:00 ZULU Position report, Ericsson 4 had duly crawled up to the line, and was about to finish in that same light breeze. The rest of the fleet had also slowed, as the windless zone continued to expand south to welcome them to India. Slowed, but not stopped, trickling onwards, the gaps narrowing, PUMA caught the Dragon for the 19:00 Position Report – sailing past her with the Code Zero up, according to Ian Walker’s email account. Both these boats are desperate for the points to keep them in touch with Ericsson 4 overall.
The next hurdle was the transition zone to the forecast north-easterly, that we’ve been expecting to flow between the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka. The TWD started to veer (rotate clockwise), from the west, into the north-east around midnight GMT. The fleet were all on port tack and you can see on the Race Viewer, how they slowly changed course towards the east, before finally tacking over to starboard to once again point at Cochin, in a north-easterly wind direction. Going upwind won’t have been much fun for Green Dragon without their boom - and it isn’t going to help them in the battle with PUMA and Delta Lloyd.
The blast of north-easterly gave brief hope to faint hearts – for a good few hours it blew strong, into the mid-teens, before fading horribly and starting to shift wildly between the north-west and the north-east. By then, Ericsson 3 were 3 hours into their StealthPlay, and given how light their breeze was at the 04:00 Position Report, just before they clicked off the radar, I suspect they were trying to hide the fact that they had sailed into a tar pit, and wanted to encourage the others to follow them in. And that’s where we found Green Dragon, PUMA and Delta Lloyd at 10:00 ZULU, closing on Ericsson 3’s last known position, but slowly …
Meanwhile, Telefonica Black seem to be considering staying offshore – which might keep them in more of the gradient wind, but will stop them getting any benefit from the local land and sea breezes. It’s a risky option, but they are definitely in a position to take risks and attack. And Team Russia? They were remaining philosophical about their plight as Mark Covell reported from onboard. It’s a navigator’s worst nightmare, as however much you bring everyone with you on a decision like that, and however good they are about it afterwards, in your heart of hearts, you know they all blame you …
Once again, it’s all summarized in today’s graph of Distance to Leader (DTL) and Leg Position (Leg_Posn) – the jumps are created by the leader changing when a boat finishes, or goes into StealthPlay. And while the pack have closed on Telefonica Blue in the last 24 hours, the sea breeze should see Bouwe Bekking and company home safely.
Looking ahead, the pleasant north-easterly gradient wind blowing onto the east coast of India is their best hope. They’ve had one blast through the gap between Sri Lanka and India, and it’s forecast to make it across the sub-continent in a bit more strength later this evening. So, no Predicted Routes today, instead I’ve got an image of the Race Viewer, showing the boats at 07:00 ZULU, but with the wind forecast in 18 hours time. And you can see that the north-easterly wind is trickling its way across the land in just about enough strength to get them home - drift away.
But as Race Forecaster, Jennifer Lilly, explained yesterday, this is going to come down to the close quarters stuff - no more grand strategies, just trying to work every puff, wind shift and cloud to your advantage. And may the best team win …
The TEN ZULU REPORT (so called because it follows the 10:00 GMT fleet position report, and Zulu is the meteorologist's name for GMT).